A Clearinghouse for Martensdale-St. Marys Community Schools Professional Development

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Whatever It Takes, Chapter 8

As we approach the completion of our study, chapter eight asks us to identify "common threads." A significant portion of the study guide questions focus on the nebulous concept of leadership. It is important to remember that leadership is isn't a quality relegated only to building principals, district administrators, department heads, or other titles commonly associated with "leaders." Your thinking and focus on our study of this book clearly illustrates a strong leadership in our staff as well. You are leaders in your classrooms, and it is the one place where you know you can make small but significant changes to ensure students are learning. Take some time to meditate on the concept of leadership with your cohort using the questions below.

1. This chapter describes principals who used “simultaneous loose-tight leadership” in implementing improvement processes in their schools. What are the things leaders must be “tight” about if they hope to create PLCs?

2. Provide examples of how principals empowered their staffs (were “loose”) by giving them significant authority and autonomy in the improvement process.

3. Consider how you might apply the concept of simultaneous loose-tight leadership in your school.

8 comments:

Rana, Brian, Kim, Terah1.)Leaders have to be "tight" making sure people are held accountable, system to delegate authority, each group has to be made of a team with a clearly set goal which is focused on results and based on data.

2.) An example would be our intervention time at MstM, we are able to spend more time on what we need to spend time on to benifit the time. The principals in the book delagated authority and leadership was widely distributed.

3.)Some things we will stand firm on, and other we will have some control over. During our PLC groups we are directed to discuss certain questions, and we are allowed to take these discussions into our own hands. Yet the requirement stands that we are to be held accountable for these conversations. Also during intervention time we are given the ability to meet the needs of our students and focus on the areas we see fit, yet the intervention time is required in our daily schedule. The concept of simultaneous loose-tight leadership is present in MstM.

1. This chapter describes principals who used “simultaneous loose-tight leadership” in implementing improvement processes in their schools. What are the things leaders must be “tight” about if they hope to create PLCs?

True accountability to those involved, everyone sees the value and just does it. They all have a common goal, buy in the process and own it! The collaboration time should both be given to teachers and be used properly to succeed. Principals are making sure everything is done and done properly. Teachers aren't afraid to approach colleagues if there is a problem.

2. Provide examples of how principals empowered their staffs (were “loose”) by giving them significant authority and autonomy in the improvement process.

Leaders would be determined by their knowledge and areas of expertise, rather than on topic. The teachers have a say in how things are done.

3. Consider how you might apply the concept of simultaneous loose-tight leadership in your school.

We already do this, to some extent. There are things that are absolutely required of us. There are other things that we are expected to do, as professionals, without being supervised.

by Mollie, Jen P., Amanda P., Sara F., Dianne R.1.Leaders must be firm about expectations from the teachers by keeping them accountable, ensuring collaborative time, and distributing leadership.2.Leaders must be loose by giving the PLC groups the voice to direct their students' educations. Leaders encourage freedom within parameters where day to day application of PLC concepts are governed by teachers instead of 1 leader.3.We need open lines of communication and a willingness to collaborate for the good of the students. Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate focusing on student data and how to teach students needing more instruction with materials.

1. This chapter describes principals who used “simultaneous loose-tight leadership” in implementing improvement processes in their schools. What are the things leaders must be “tight” about if they hope to create PLCs? -Organization is something that is essential and can't really be negotiable. Focus needs to go from teaching to learning. There needs to be a focus on the type of assessments teacher use and how we use them.

2. Provide examples of how principals empowered their staffs (were “loose”) by giving them significant authority and autonomy in the improvement process. -Teachers were given flexibility because authority was delegated to them. Each subject team is able to meet and a team leader is chosen and they are able to collaborate amongst themselves rather than being told what to do.

3. Consider how you might apply the concept of simultaneous loose-tight leadership in your school. -Teachers would need time to collaborate about given issues in smaller, subject area groups, then allow for time to bring those issues to the whole group to discuss. Tutoring and before and after school help would be something that would be beneficial.

1. This chapter describes principals who used “simultaneous loose-tight leadership” in implementing improvement processes in their schools. What are the things leaders must be “tight” about if they hope to create PLCs?

School leaders need to be champions, promoters, and protectors of the key PLC concept. They must be aware of how involved they are in the PLC initiative. The leadership needs to be strong and consistent users in order to model the behavior they want the staff to have. The leaders need to ensure everyone is on the same page and working on the same things. They need provide collaborative time to the school staff to plan and create assessments within the PLC.

2. Provide examples of how principals empowered their staffs (were “loose”) by giving them significant authority and autonomy in the improvement process.

They step back from being the central problem solver, developed collaborative decision making processes, and delegated authority. They gave teachers a voice in the improvement process. Teachers were given freedoms with parameters.

3. Consider how you might apply the concept of simultaneous loose-tight leadership in your school.

More collaboration time for teachers, shared distributive leadership, be more proactive on interpreting assessment data (students who were identified in previous years be followed up on), give teachers more freedom with parameters, have a learning goal that everyone is focusing on over a period of time rather than jumping around to different things in the year and from year to year – we need more consistency, identify common areas of low achievement and attack them as a group rather than have individual grades work on them as needed.

1. If leaders hope to create PLC's they must be tight in regards to their clarity of purpose. The staff must be clear in their purpose - no excuses (such as parents, funding, motivation of students). A strong professional learning community is essential and principals must be commited to empowering their teachers. The principal had certain expectations that the teachers needed to follow regardless of their feelings on the matter.

2. Principals empowered their staffs with significant authority and autonomy by encouraging collaboration, by designating each department head be a part of the administrative team, and by extending leadership opportunities by designating a team leader for their course-specific, grade-level, and interdisciplinary teams. Common assessments were also designed locally within each department.

3. How could we apply the concept of simultaneous loose-tight leadership in our school? We feel we've done this already as: our principal has designated and delegated authority to a staff leader. The staff leader has identified PLC's and expectations for those PLC's. The PLC's recommend remedies that apply to our system.

1. Principals should be tight in regards to the commitment of other teachers on board with the PLC concepts and visions. If one teacher is not on board, it can interfere with the group and its visions.

2. In most of the schools, the teachers were head of the committees and created interventions for the program. Also, they created common assessments for the students rather than the administrators.

3. We would apply common assessments for each grade level. Also, we could create a universal intervention plan for the school to follow.

1. Consistency is important. The principal needs to take care of problems that arise (staff, conflict in PLC groups) and resolve them so that groups can be effective. Supportive of teacher’s ideas and initiatives is also important. Being open to ideas fits with that as well. 2. At these schools it was not an administrative/ subordinate relationship. It was a larger group of staff, administration, etc. working together to reach a common goal. Allowing teachers to have authority and autonomy helps them to “own” the idea.3. It starts with a culture of unity and focus on a common goal. The leadership provides the “climate” of a school. We need to stress cohesiveness and working as a team with common goals and a streamlined focus of what needs to be done to achieve those goals.